About Corenso North America

Address: 800 Fremont St., Wisconsin Rapids Number of employees: ?? Founded: 2000 (as a result of the company’s acquisition of Consolidated Papers Inc.) Contact info: Phone 715-422-7860; website: www.corenso.comAbout the business: Produces high-quality coreboards and high-performance cores and tubes, serves as the North American headquarters of the Finland-based Corenso, a subsidiary of papermaker Stora Enso.

Community recycled cardboard and paper products on a conveyer belt at Corenso North America. / CASEY LAKE/DAILY TRIBUNE MEDIA

The drop-off for community recycled products at Corenso North America. / CASEY LAKE/DAILY TRIBUNE MEDIA

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For more than a century, the paper industry has dominated the central Wisconsin manufacturing landscape, and despite recent challenges, one local specialty paper product company is weathering the storm.

Corenso North America, a subsidiary of Helsinki-based Stora Enso Oyj, produces recycled paper from material it collects in the Wisconsin Rapids area, as well as coreboard — a special type of paper used in applications such as tape rolls, said Tom Janke, president of Corenso North America.

The historical connection to the central Wisconsin area and the company’s dedication to its employees and community highlight the mission of the business, Janke said.

Question: What does your business do and why is it special?

Answer: We actually have two parts of Corenso North America. One of them is a paper machine that produces 100 percent recycled paper, and that is in the Wisconsin Rapids mill of NewPage, and then ... we take about a third of that product, and we convert it into what are called cores.

Cores are things that customers either wrap something around or put something inside of. The majority of what ours do (is) they would wrap film or paper or tape around it for further converting, so that’s the two businesses that we’re in, and we’ve been doing that, by the way, in central Wisconsin here for more than 50 years — probably as many as 80 years.

What is special about what we do is that the machine that we have for making the paper has technology that makes it one of the top two or three machines in North America in terms of its consistency and its ability to make various different grades. On the converting operation, we are involved and developed (in)to a company that is involved in markets that are higher-end markets.

Q: Why have you chosen central Wisconsin as a place to do business?

A: First of all, our roots are here ... and the historical markets that we have for our product are still here — (those) being paper mill cores and paper ... producers, so that we still have an abundance of that end-use customer in this market segment.

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There are a significant number of customers for our coreboard in this market. While the paper industry has faced some challenges over the last few years, Wisconsin has been a developing film market. ... and it’s because of our agriculture base, so while paper has been stable or reducing, we’re seeing more and more uses for producing carriers for film.

There’s (also) a manufacturing mentality here in this community, people understand that and it also has historical roots, so just (by having) quality people to being able to staff and work at Corenso, the work ethic is really good.

Q: What makes that work ethic unique to central Wisconsin?

A: From a standpoint of absenteeism — or whether you want to call it ‘presenteeism’ — we’re always the best in terms of people. ... Sometimes you have to tell people ‘No, we don’t want you here; you’re sick. We don’t need you here; go home.’ They come to work to get work done.

I don’t know if it’s part of the agricultural heritage or what it is, but people are not afraid to work. In our case, it shows up by virtue of people being willing to pitch in, but also coming to work and just doing their job, and it’s not that way everywhere.

Q: What’s your long-term vision for the company?

A: The long-term vision for Corenso North America here is to be a sustainable, viable business that continues to be our customers’ choice, providing jobs for people in this community, bottom line.

With an industry that’s changing, we have to be willing to adapt and we have to be willing to make other changes as well, but we want to secure the future. That’s what our objective is — to have a strategy to be able to provide the quality, to provide the innovation so that we have a sustainable business employing our people here in central Wisconsin.

We’re in a marketplace right now that has over-capacity, so for us to say we’d like to have additional facilities and grow our business significantly, you have to understand what the push and pulls of the marketplace are to be able to do that. Essentially, what we want to do is to be positioned in such a way that we have the quality, the reputation, the responsiveness so that companies spend their money on our product, and through that, we can provide security for our families by being a sustaining business.

Q: What is your company doing to adapt to an ever-changing paper industry?

A: We’re focused on operational metrics as much as we possibly can — things like up-time and scrap and machine efficiencies and things and those kind of things.

In addition to that, we have a real focus on developing leaders at all areas of the company — not just front-line leaders who have to be able to train and verify and motivate and, in some cases, possibly discipline, but only as a last resort, but developing leadership in every level of the organization, combined with operational excellence.